Biography

My life centers on one fact: I am a descendent of people who have lived for ten thousand years on the same land. In all of those years, many have come to remove us from our home, which is our beating heart, and none have succeeded. Those who are like me are the reason for that. I am Violet, and before I changed, I was training to become lore-keeper of the Me-wuk who live at Wilton Rancheria.

I knew of the Hus'o, of course, the Man-Bears who guarded our tribes. It was a story my grandmother had taught me, but more than that, there was Joshua.

Just as the bear is a solitary creature, there is only ever one Hus'o within a tribe. One is all that is needed against most threats. But the Hus'o are more than simply warriors with the heart of a bear. Our legends say that of all of the creatures on Earth, the great bear is closest to its heart. They hear its language, feel its seasons in their bones. When a bear withdraws to its cave to sleep the winter away, the Earth sings to it of wisdom and peace and balance with all things. Bears are Earth's healers, and best loved children. So too is it with the Hus'o; the greatest of the tribe becomes one with the bear when the need is great.

Joshua was our best-loved. Even as a child, he was tall, and strong, and wise. He was my closest friend, both before and after his change. Had he lived, I would have been his wife, and perhaps one day our son would have taken his father's place as the keeper of our tribe. But Joshua was killed, savaged by creatures who are a blight upon our Earth, and now I have been changed. Not only I…many. It is unheard of, in our legends, that more than one Hus'o may exist within the same territory but Joshua's death seems to have broken the natural order of things. Before I left the Rancheria, there were three of us. When I return, I do not know how many I will find. It is a worry, these changes.

But I tell my story backwards. Best to begin with the beginning.

The Me-wuk descend from people who settled throughout the Sacramento Valley, in California. Their territory ranged from the Sacramento Delta to the west, to the Sierra Valley in the east. They were a peaceful and prosperous people, fishermen, hunters, and farmers who lived close to the land. As the white settlers appeared, Spanish missionaries, American gold-seekers and settlers fleeing the east, my people were enslaved, converted, slaughtered by the tens of thousands. But they fought, and they survived, even as they were threatened, and lied to, and killed. In time, they were given land on which to settle again and still they fought. Last year, we filed against the Federal Government for the rights that had been stolen from us. I believe we will win.

I was born on the Wilton Rancheria. My parents were highly respected among the people; my father was a renowned healer, my mother a teacher. I grew up happy, with none of the misery that many of the white people expect from those of us who live on reservations. When I was ten, my grandmother decided that I was bright and capable enough to learn our histories. It was then that I learned of the Hus'o. Their existence is our secret, and many of the Me-wuk have never heard of them. But I learned. And as Joshua, the best friend of my girlhood, grew to maturity, I remembered.

It did not surprise me, when his time of changing came.

At first, he tried to hide his new life from me, but how can you hide from both love and knowledge? Besides, he was studying under my father to become a healer. There was no getting away. I was not afraid of him; just seeing him, so tall and strong, made my heart feel squeezed in a fist of pride. When Joshua realized that there was to be no escaping from me, I think he was as relieved as he was amused. "You're as stubborn as the sea," he told me. When I told him that made no sense at all, he kissed me to silence any other argument I might have made.

It was a happy time.

I will tell this part quickly, for the wound is still raw, though this happened over four years ago.

Strangers came to the Rancheria. There was no warning, no sign given by Earth or heart that our lives were about to be changed. For ten thousand years, we had weathered every assault on our home that the white man had made. This changed in one night.

They were so very pale, these men. Pale and cold. Joshua had told me of their existence, the dead who walked and craved living blood. I shivered at the story but gave it little thought, for I had never seen one. But that night…

There were six of them. Perhaps seven. It was difficult to tell, they moved so quickly. I do not know why they attacked us, for I had never seen their faces before, but they fell on the Rancheria like starving men. The screams…so many died. Joshua leapt from our bed and went to meet them, and I followed. I don't know why, except that I was afraid for him. Afraid of that night full of screams and blood. They were faster than him, and there were more of them, but they could not match his strength. He killed three before he fell.

I killed the remaining three.

My change came on me as I saw him fall. I had never shown the signs, there was no warning that I might carry on the line of the Hus'o. I had only knowledge of them, and the memory of his kiss when I confronted him about what he was. When I saw Joshua fall, the rage that came on me painted my vision in red. They died, as he did, and I wish that they had risen again, so that I might have killed them once more.

Afterwards, my parents and grandmother tended me through my grief. It was easier to accept what I was, for I had seen it in my love, but it was hard to face a life without him. I had no purpose…no. I *wanted* no purpose, but it had been decided otherwise. I had to live, to protect our tribe. Plainly, the modern world still possessed threats.

I would still be there today, guarding my people with my life, had not another boy gone through the change, two years after I did. A second followed him, six months afterwards. Then there were three of us, and we were afraid at what that might mean. Before Joshua died, he told me that whispers had come to him of a great pack of spirit-brothers to the north. Men, like him, who shared the hearts of animals. He said there were more than there ever had been before, and he had laughed…that is the way of wolves, he told me. They breed like rabbits, and need those numbers to survive, for they are smaller, and weaker than the great bear.

Now I follow those whispers. They who are many may know why they who are one have become many too. I have tracked the smell of wolf to this town, with its angry skies and deep, wet woods. I am Violet Villanueva, of the Wilton Rancheria Me-wuk. I come from a line that is ten thousand years old, and walk with the Earth's own wisdom. I hear its whispers, I feels its seasons in my bones. Winter is coming and my heart bids me rest, but I must not.

Timeline and Current Plots

Personality

Violet carries a lot of weight on her shoulders, and it shows in her mannerisms. She's quiet, thoughtful, careful in her choice of words. Some might call her laconic. She possesses an aura of warmth, even of wisdom for those who care to recognize such things, and there are few who can claim as much patience. But there is a limit to every fuse, and while hers is longer than most, when her rage is ignited, it's a horrible thing. Only time and rampant destruction can bleed that anger; if Violet is provoked into a fight, there is no running from it. The past four years have allowed her to learn some of the control needed to keep that rage in check but with her loathing of vampires, and congenial distrust of wolves, complete control is a work in progress.